The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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I'm just about finished with a bulk phase and now doing a cut phase. That is, dieting.
My problem with dieting is that the person who decides to begin the diet., me, can be overruled by the future me through non-compliance. I cannot make decisions that bind my future self.
If I get a DEXA scan done, and weigh myself, and have blood test and take BP measurements, that puts me into a mode to really focus on my health. The problem is after a few months of it the dread sets in and I avoid weighing myself. Or I stop logging my calories. Some time has gone by and I don't want to see my BP anymore.
Biomarkers are great for me for motivation, but they rely on me to get them done, and sometimes I run out of motivation to have them done.
One idea I had writing this: when I get my DEXA scan done, immediately schedule the next one for 3 months out. There's probably not much health utility to getting them done so frequently, but I imagine it would be super annoying to pay for one and see fat gain. Looming persistent motivator.
Anything else along these lines? I could imagine a boutique health app leveraging similar persistent motivator things like this.
Alternatively, can I create a personal psycho-social environment that puts extreme pressure on me to strive for low body fat? You know, like what the Japanese have going for them.
The key is to give yourself some mild body dysmorphia around the major problem area. I don’t have “abs” in the six pack sense, but I have a flat stomach and I’m extremely sensitive to noticing even a slight increase in fat, which happens maybe two or three times a year, whereupon I channel the resulting self hatred to immediately cut my food intake by ~40% for a few days and quickly return to baseline. This has kept me skinny for a long time with minimal discomfort.
It seems to me the classic gym bulking/cutting regime makes things more difficult because you really have to suffer through a pretty substantial weight loss at calorie deficit for a long time a couple times a year. Better to avoid gaining the fat at all if you can.
Yeah.
I was as high as 260 at my worst following SAD with no exercise, 190 at my best through extremely rigorous dieting and exercise. My dysmorphia kicks in at 220 but that's still too high. I think the reason is I start to see it in my face when I reach 220, and that triggers disgust. Ideally I would have earlier "I'd better fucking deal with this" signals.
Perhaps an opt-in fat shaming subreddit? :thinking:
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